Monday, August 15, 2011

My Last First Day

It is 11:15 and I've FINALLY finished planning for tomorrow. Even though I have to get up at 5:15, I wanted to take the time to journal about today.

Today was my last ever first day of teaching. Thank goodness.

I cried a bit on my way to class, out of the excitement and vision for my kids. I cried on the way home out of sheer frustration, exhaustion and sense of being overwhelmed.
Since last Monday, I've probably only had about 5 hours that I wasn't sleeping or working. I'm NOT exaggerating.

This is insane.

And today was insane. We started the day with an incomprehensible crash course in how the day would work. The day ended with me releasing my students at the wrong time to the wrong places. In between we had cockroaches coming from the ceiling, indoor recess because of rain, a flooded boys bathroom, a boy punching the chalkboard, several kids sleeping on their desk and a terrible feedback (due to Friday's lighting strike) from the PA every time the Principal spoke, hurting the kids' ears and preventing us from knowing when and where to release the students.

But a bit of good / funny news. 1) I got asked twice if I was the Principal. Both times I laughed. One mom said, "you just look like a Principal."
2)In the one stretch in which all kids were paying attention, I got to give a speech about the importance of succeeding academically so one can graduate from college.
3) The SPED teacher across the hall told me that compared to last year's first day, I had GREAT first day. Of course, the classroom I'm currently in had 5 different teachers last year.

I can't promise I'll ever get my students to behave or even learn something. But I can promise I'm not going anywhere.